


its own calms (abandoned)

by leedeeloo



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Body Horror I Guess, Disabled Protagonist, Gen, Human AU, dogtor sung (hes here but hes a dog so im not counting him as a character), we're starting the slow burn lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leedeeloo/pseuds/leedeeloo
Summary: as of october 2020 i've decided to abandon this fic. i don't see myself coming back to this au any time soon.Phobos Volk's life is falling apart at the seams: his brother Deimos has been tried and charged with a murder he didn't commit, leaving Phobos responsible for both their living expenses; the apartment they shared, the treatments for their chronic illnesses, and now the fees of their new defense lawyer, Rob Gwin. With his service dog Doctor Sung keeping Phobos well aware of his imminent flare up from this new stress, he doesn't even have the time to think about how cute this new lawyer is.tags will be added as needed, rating and warnings are subject to change, please pay attention to that as this story updates!
Relationships: lord phobos/rob gwin
Comments: 28
Kudos: 17





	1. eventually, somehow

Phobos didn’t remember getting home. He didn’t remember the drive home, or leaving the courthouse. He floated through his front door, must have shut and locked it. He unclipped the waist belt from around him, undid the other end from his dog. He hung it all up, feet dragging as his dog, Doctor Sung vyed for his attention.

His home didn’t feel like home anymore. The neighbors were unusually quiet, mockingly so. 

His clothes fell off his body; the suit jacket, the good shoes, the tie a nasty wrangle that he pulled off over his head and got caught in his hair. His belt cast across the couch, the slacks, the dress shirt, all of it had to be off and kicked away, it just made everything cling to him. Everything that had happened that day, the stink of the courthouse.

Phobos wrapped his arms around himself. Goosebumps up his arms, a jerking shiver. He must be cold. A wet nose at his calf, then some furry force. A push, his dog pushing him along. Phobos plodded along, then stopped.

The door at the end of the hall was his room. The door next to him, directly to his right, was his brother’s room, Deimos. 

He didn’t know why, but he opened it. 

The room looked like Deimos had just stepped out for a moment. Like he was just in the bathroom and would be back in a second; his bed wasn’t made like it was when he left for work in the morning, his laptop was unplugged on his desk. Phobos stepped into the room, towards the bed. His closet was shut tightly as usual, framed posters on the wall-- one of them was missing, a movie poster that Phobos never could remember the name of even when he was standing right there, Deimos having had taken it down just a couple weeks prior, replacing the frame. 

Phobos sat on the edge of the bed, the very bottom corner, looking back into the hallway. Doc snorted at his feet. 

Phobos leaned down, picked Doc up with a small grunt. His bed had steps up the side for Doc to get in easier, but Deimos’ didn’t. His dog in his brother’s bed with him, he crawled to the head of it, pulling the blankets over himself, finally warm again. 

The living room light was on, the hallway light, but not the light in the bedroom. It was dark, but not so dark that Phobos couldn’t see his brother’s hairs weaved into the pillow case, couldn’t see his daybook open to last week’s page on the nightstand.

Eventually, somehow, Phobos fell asleep.

* * *

The morning came too soon. Phobos rolled over, flat on his back, shoulders aching. He sat up, too fast, a shock of pain going up his back. Everything hurt, and Doc whimpered next to him; first a warning about his joints, and then that he couldn’t jump off the bed. 

That warning whine with nips at Phobos’ skin finally stopped after he made his way to his room and gotten dressed. Doc sat in Phobos’ lap as he had a morning coffee, scrolling through his phone contacts until he finally clicked one, the dialing tones playing as he held it to his ear.

The line picked up right away. “ _ Titka _ ,” Phobos said; a Ukrainian term for an aunt, though she wasn’t related. His parents were close friends with her as he and Deimos grew up, and they spoke with her often. “How are you?” he asked, voice still gravely from sleep. 

“ _ Kusaka _ , did you just get up?” she asked, then quickly switched to Ukrainian, “ _ have you eaten? _ ”

Phobos smiled at the nickname, holding his coffee under his nose. “ _ No, no _ ,” he responded in kind, “ _ not yet. Doc hasn’t eaten yet, either _ .”

She tsk’d, in that loving, fond way, just a breath away from threatening to come over there and feed him. 

“ _ So, Deimos, _ ” he said before she could do just that. It was the whole point of him calling her, after all. “ _ His trial was yesterday. _ ”

“ _ It was on the news _ ,” she told him. “ _ The television last night, and the radio this morning. _ ”

Phobos took in a breath, held it. Everyone would probably know. He’d tried to keep quiet about the trial, but people heard the name Volk pop up and tuned in. People would know now, people would ask him, maybe well meaning, about his brother being found guilty of murder.

“ _ Kusaka _ ?” she said, cutting through the spiral Phobos was starting. “ _ Kusaka _ ,  _ speak to me. _ ”

“ _Sorry,_ ” Phobos mumbled. “ _Do you still have that-- your telephone book, the address book?_ _I want a lawyer. A good one._ ”

She hummed an ‘ _ mhm _ ’ which was followed by pages turning. A small smile spread across Phobos’ face, thinking about her taking that worn address book off her shelf, laying it by the phone while she waited for him to call, knowing he would. 

“ _ It’s a law firm, _ ” she said, “ _ lots of lawyers, your family has used them for a long time, not just me and your parents. _ ” Phobos hummed, grabbing a pen and paper. She gave him the name, the number, and the address. Phobos paused after writing it all down. It wasn’t too far, just in Bonnie Doon, he was pretty sure. 

“ _ You should’ve asked for that in the first place, _ ” she said, chastising. “ _ Your parents, they got you boys too used to being in the city, not being part of the community. That lawyer you got for his trial, he never could’ve-- _ ” 

“ _ Well, it’s too late now. _ ” Phobos interrupted. He didn’t need to be told it was his fault his brother was locked up, he already knew. “I have to go,” he said in English. 

“Ah,  _ kusaka _ , wait--” But he didn’t hear her, hanging up and smacking his phone face down on the table. He pushed it away, looked down the hall to the bedrooms again. He sniffled, stood. He tried to fill his mind with thoughts of breakfast instead, with preparing Doc’s food and then his, fill his mind with anything, to keep it off that silence of the closed door.


	2. belief and a buzzcut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we meet deimos in this one

Although he’d done very little but sit for the past hour, Phobos was already exhausted. He’d taken the bus to this law firm, despite it maybe being a fifteen minute drive. He could have driven, he told himself. He thought about it as he was leaving his house, glancing out onto their driveway, at their car. He could have, he and Deimos equally owned it, at worst he was a little out of practice.

He actually got all the way to sitting in the driver's seat, Doc loaded in the back seat, his hands on the wheel, knuckles white. Something warped in his brain, made him  _ feel _ like he was in the passenger seat. Just like it would have been barely a month ago, he and Deimos heading to work in the morning; Deimos driving as he usually did, Phobos laughing as they hit the same pothole in the back alley he did almost every day, Deimos swearing and cursing the road, their neighbors, the city infrastructure. 

And then he was alone in their car, still off, tense from his fingers to his shoulders, Doc yapping behind him.

So he took the bus and barely arrived on time.

The office wasn’t what he’d anticipated. It was in a residential neighborhood, just a house down from the bus stop. It looked like the houses next door, the fact that it was a business marked only by the sign out front; Nowak-Brown and associates. Other than that, it was just a house; two floors, the curtains these long vertical panels, partially open in the front window. 

As he got closer, he saw a sign on the door, indicating to just come in. There also wasn’t a doorbell. So, as instructed, he turned the knob and came inside.

It was an interesting conversion, an interesting little strangle-knot of a space. Much more closed off than most of the actual homes in the area probably were. The reception and a small waiting area were a hard right at the door, maybe originally some kind of hall closet, walls knocked out. Left were stairs up, no barrier or sign indicating what was up there from what Phobos could see. Straight down to the back of the building was a hallway, doors all along the left side, and another open doorway on the right, behind reception. Over the obvious back door was a glowing red exit sign.

The last thing this setup did was put him at ease. He gave his name to the receptionist and promptly sat in one of the stiff chairs and waited. Phobos liked to literally sit on his hands-- there was a cold snap, he hadn’t brought his gloves, he’d tear up his cuticles otherwise-- and Doc, as always, was obediently tucked under the chair, behind Phobos’ heels, huffing hot dog breath on the bare skin peering over his shoes.

“Phobos Volk?” the receptionist asked, the sudden sound in the otherwise silent room making him bolt upright. She smiled at him, pinched, apologetic. “Mr. Gwin is ready for you, he’s in the office all the way at the back, on the left.”

Phobos mumbled a thank you, and gave Doc’s leash a small tug before heading down the hall. 

The directions seemed like overkill, he realized, getting to only the second door down the hallway, a placard on it reading “R. Gwin”. Same as the other door, just a different name. Admittedly, the place was kind of cute. Kitschy. Both doors had letter slots in them, the decor a sort of… retro professional. 

He stared at the shut door. No indication of anyone inside, the kitchen quiet behind him. He looked over his shoulder, just to peek, just curious. It was an office kitchen, exactly like the one at his job. 

He knocked.

Maybe someone said something behind the door. It was hard to tell; maybe Mr. Gwin was on the phone, or with another client, but the receptionist  _ did _ say he was ready now. 

So Phobos knocked again. Louder.

After a moment the door pulled open, inward.

Phobos was used to having to look down at people; both he and Deimos had shot up to almost six feet the summer before high school, and there they remained, Phobos becoming gangly and awkward, and Deimos suiting it. So it was a bit of a surprise when Phobos found he had to track his gaze upwards to make eye contact, first looking at a crisp white shirt collar and suit lapel under a clean shaven jaw, then over-shooting to this messy blonde hair, finally meeting these blank blue eyes, matching the complete lack of expression he had on the rest of his face.

“Mr. Gwin?” Phobos said.

Mr. Gwin nodded. “Rob,” he said, holding out his right hand, still holding the door with the other, and Phobos shook it. “Rob Gwin. You’re Mr. Volk then?” With that, Mr. Gwin stepped back, into the room, and Phobos followed.

“Oh, just Phobos is fine.” 

It wasn’t a big office, not by a long shot. The L shaped desk, the chair behind it and the two in front of it, were all overshadowed by the bookshelves lining the walls, and the filing cabinets filling the space left. The walls were white, not that it helped to brighten up the room any; there wasn’t a window, the wall opposite the door probably looking to the neighboring building, and all the furniture had that same retro professional feel; dark woods, sleek and polished, but dark nonetheless. 

Dark, stuffy, and just as terrible at calming Phobos down as the waiting room was.

The chair was more comfortable than the last one he’d sat in, at least. Phobos let himself settle, still looking about the room, barely registering the door clicking shut, Doc laying over his feet rather than behind them this time.

“So,” Mr. Gwin started, coasting into his seat at his desk. He seemed to already have a file ready, papers out on the otherwise empty desk. “You need my expertise?” he asked, leading.

Phobos did his best not to roll his eyes over the ridiculous song and dance again. He’d done it at least three times over the phone. 

“I do,” he said. “I don’t know how much you looked into it yourself, but my brother is in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. The lawyer we got for the trial wasn’t ‘experienced’ enough. So, I asked my  _ titka _ , and she referred me here.”

Mr. Gwin nodded, looking at the papers before him. “If you have any documentation of this all, that would--”

“I do,” Phobos said again. He reached down, grabbing his messenger bag from the floor and pulling it onto his lap; it had been straining his shoulder this whole time, even though he’d only felt the weight of it for maybe half an hour, tops. 

It was overstuffed, filled with absolutely everything about this nightmare. All of it, contained in two thick file folders, both rubber banded shut. He set them on the desk carefully. His bag, now empty, was placed on the floor next to his chair.

“That top one should be the oldest, starting with the arrest report.”

Mr. Gwin pushed up the edge of the manilla folder, Phobos watching with his hands folded in his lap. He watched this lawyer pull off the rubber band, flip through all the pages, the resistance of their edges on his thumb, and then finally look at the first page. Phobos felt Doc stir, rubbing his snout against his pant leg. Phobos reached down, still watching Mr. Gwin, and scratched the top of Doc’s head, let him smell his fingers, and his dog settled back down.

“You’re Phobos,” Mr. Gwin started, “and your brother is Deimos?”

Phobos nodded. Saw the quirk of an eyebrow, and shrugged. “Our parents were weird.”

Mr. Gwin nodded, started to look through things a bit more carefully.

“It should be all chronological,” Phobos explained, “but that’s the only order. There’s correspondence with our first lawyer, newspaper articles covering it, the trial transcriptions, Deimos’ pay stubs with his hours-- everything I could get my hands on, basically.”

The only sound was paper shuffling, small pauses as Mr. Gwin would stop to read something more closely. Phobos tried to surreptitiously peer at the pages, trying to figure out what exactly he was skimming, what he was lingering on. 

“You’re Ukrainian?” Mr. Gwin asked, still looking down. 

Phobos nodded, then answered. “Yeah. Mom’s side was some of the first immigrants, but we’re second generation on dad’s, his parents came here in the 50’s, I think.”

He was quiet for a while, listening slowly while he read, trying to take both streams of information at once. 

“...Are you?” Phobos asked.

Mr. Gwin looked up, eyes wide in surprise, and he gave a small smile, shook his head. “No, no,” he answered, looking back down, flipping a page, “just get a lot of clients that are, so it’s familiar, that’s all.” After a moment of consideration, he looked back up, sitting up straight. He looked Phobos right in the eye, unwavering and striking, that blue boring into him. “You’re in good hands, Phobos. I promise.”

Something made Phobos believe him.

* * *

All the nervousness Phobos had, had been worked out of him on the hour long drive to the prison. His hang ups about driving had eked away by the time he got on the highway, and that itchy fear about the prison itself and its security had faded once he got out of the city. By the time he arrived he was actually calm, only thinking about how he’d have to buy a watch as he stared at the clock on the wall, having left his phone in the car.

When he finally got in, the stereotypical booth with the phone and the thick glass pane, he could almost forget this was new, unusual. 

As Deimos plunked down into the seat through the glass, Phobos got that feeling again; everything was too thick, too secure, for him to feel the impact through the floor like he should have, and there was that sensation of looking through the mirror, not at his brother. At least, until he  _ looked _ at Deimos, and noticed something missing. 

They picked up the phones, holding them to their ears at exactly the same time, the same tempo.

“They cut your hair,” Phobos said. He meant to say ‘hi’ or ‘how are you’ or ‘I got a new lawyer’ but the first the first thing he actually said to his brother was… that. Noticing he had a buzzcut now. That his mane of curls was gone, that Phobos didn’t have the phantom reminder of the heat of his flat iron when he looked at Deimos now.

“I cut it,” Deimos replied, his voice tinny, somehow, not as clear as Phobos wanted it over the short connection. “I saw a guy get skull dragged, so. Decided this was better.”

“Right,” Phobos sighed. “How are you doing?”

“Shitty.”

“Right,” Phobos said again. Stupid question. Deimos stared down, at the small counter, the gap between them, while Phobos kept looking him in the face, trying to figure out if anything looked  _ different _ yet. “What do you need?” He asked, “what’s the most important thing to make it less shitty?”

Deimos’ tongue peeked out of his mouth, just enough for Phobos to see him biting it in thought. 

“My meds,” he said finally. “As soon as they brought me in I asked the pharmacy to order them in, because I knew they wouldn’t have them, and they obviously wouldn’t let me bring mine in, but it’s been, what, a week? And they still haven’t--”

“You’ve been off your meds for a week?” Phobos asked, gobsmacked.

“Yeah.”

That wasn’t good. 

“Okay,” Phobos breathed. He could fix that, probably. “As soon as I leave, I’ll call our doctor, and our lawyer, and I’ll see if I can call this pharmacy or the warden, or something, and I can get those for you.”

Deimos scoffed. “I don’t think our fuckin’ lawyer is--”

“I got a new one,” Phobos interrupted. “ _ Titka _ said the firm was good, and he’s their defense lawyer, but they’ve got, like, other ones there.” He looked up, finally making eye contact with his brother since he got in. “He knows what he’s doing.”

There he was again, just for a moment. His brother, his twin, brimming confidence and certainty, nodding behind the thick glass partition, trusting Phobos. Trusting his judgement, his choices, not undercutting him or offering back-handed what-ifs. It felt like the first time in years he had that assurance. Maybe it had been. 

“What else do you need?” Phobos asked. “What do you want?” he corrected, assuming his medication would be the most pressing.

“Bring Doc next time.”

“They don’t allow pets.”

“He’s a service dog,” Deimos countered, getting that half indignant tone to him, eyebrows knotting. “It’s a long way from home here, you need him nearby.” he said, offering justification, a script for Phobos to rattle off next time if he hit a hiccup. “Probably more now, now that I’m not around.” he was too flippant as he said that, too casual.

Like this was forever.

“You are around,” Phobos insisted, then relented, “...I’ll bring him. Next time, I’ll bring him in.”

Deimos smiled, leaned forward, one arm folded on the counter, the other holding the phone to his ear, and asked Phobos how  _ he _ had been. As if they really were on the phone. Or catching up. Like things were normal, more normal than ever.

Phobos dug his nails into his knee as he answered, willing himself not to cry, pretending this was normal, that things would be fine again soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heres hoping i finish chapter 3 soon! i have the outline for chapter 4 started, and a vague idea for chapter 5  
> lemme know what you think! what do you guys think of deimos, is rob rob enough?


	3. just disappointments

After two weeks, Phobos was finally back to work. 

It wasn’t enough. It was too short. 

And yet, he knew he could have taken more time off. Dipped into his sick leave, cleared that out. He certainly didn’t feel well enough to go back. He thought about it while e-mailing his boss, and during the drive in, white-knuckled as his drive to visit Deimos. 

It was only about a ten minute drive from his house to the Jasper Place library, but nothing about it was familiar. Normally Deimos drove, dropping Phobos off before heading to the University of Alberta Hospital. It felt so much shorter and so much longer than every other morning, and so _wrong_ , like he was forgetting something. It nagged at the back of his mind the whole way, as he tried to think of everything he actually needed that day; his lunch, his keys, his wallet, Doc’s vest fully stocked, Doc’s lunch, his key card, the waist belt to Doc’s leash--

It wasn’t until he was parking the car, something he’d never done, that he realized what his brain was telling him he was forgetting; his brother.

Needless to say, he wasn’t looking forward to the day. 

Especially not after getting into the library and checking his schedule for the week. Normally, he had a certain routine, but given the… events of the past few weeks, Phobos had requested to be scheduled for more back-end shifts, cataloguing returns and what materials were being circulated internally. He didn't think he could handle having to talk to his coworkers, let alone the public.

He’d been scheduled for the same things as usual; collecting items for re-shelving, working the main desk, and the reference desk. 

“Jennifer,” he said; his boss was in the breakroom, where the schedule was posted, clutching a mug of coffee. “Why am I scheduled to face this week?”

She looked up at him from where she sat, as he glanced back over his shoulder. “Because you always are?” she answered.

“You told me last night I could work internal this week,” Phobos said, pulling his phone out of his pockets and opening his work e-mail. Before he even had it open, she let out a moan.

“Ohh, you did, that’s right.” She turned to face him, hand still around her mug. “Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t change everyone’s schedules around in a way that made sense.”

Phobos pressed his mouth into a frown, refreshing his e-mail. “You didn’t mention that to me.”

“No, I forgot,” Jennifer replied. “Sorry.”

* * *

See, Phobos had a very specific schedule to his days. In the mornings, for as long as he could stand, he’d push a book cart around a meandering path through the library, picking up discarded materials. There were shelves for just this purpose scattered throughout for just this reason, but he liked to collect from those last; there never was much in them in the mornings, anyway. It made his body burn from his shoulders to his knees, and there wasn’t a snowball's chance in hell he could do it any later in the day. Still, someone had to, and truth be told, he kind of liked doing this in the mornings. He was at his most energetic for the day, at least physically, and he liked seeing what was actually circulating within the branch, touching the items, imagining who had picked it up, why they’d set it down.

Plus, it gave him the perfect excuse to avoid answering how his “vacation” had been. He’d keep this up until his lunch break if it meant he didn’t have to sit at the front desk with a coworker and try not to talk. If he was lucky, he could just do this and the reference desk all day, and never have to speak a word to anyone at all.

It worked pretty well. Pretty well, ignoring the throbbing ache in his jaw, his fingertips going numb, and not being able to quite lift his right leg all the way up as he walked. Doc kept giving insistent nips to Phobos’ heels, which he ignored until lunch, when it was finally paired with a growl as Phobos returned one of the carts to cataloging. 

“You win, you win,” Phobos grunted, sitting down. It was where he _should_ have been today, the office chairs in the back, in cataloging, rolling along the long desk from returned items to the computer, dutifully searching each one and marking the date. But, here he was, perching on the edge of the chair, no right to _loiter_ in there, unzipping a pocket on docs vest to get his meds out.

Doc always alerted Phobos in particular ways, depending on what he needed; now, with Phobos sitting and meds safely retrieved, Doc was trying to hop up into his lap to put his body weight over Phobos’ hips, where he always had the most pain. He’d turned his left side to Phobos before this, the side of him that stored the pills to suppress a sudden flare up; with Doc’s warning, Phobos had a good chance of stopping it in its tracks, rather than simply slowing it. 

He threw his head back, swallowing a mouthful of spit and a pill with a grimace. He couldn’t carry a water bottle while he did discards. He didn’t like to set it on the cart, they’d always rattle around or roll off and always take up valuable space, and strapping it to his body made him feel like he was hiking the rockies, not trodding through a library.

He put the cap back on the bottle, and put it back into Doc’s vest. 

“Let’s go,” Phobos said, giving Doc a small shove on his rear. 

He didn’t budge.

“C’mon,” Phobos said a little more insistent, pushing Doc’s solid furry body with both hands, getting a soft growl in response. Phobos let out a sigh; allegedly, Doc knew he when he was working and when he wasn’t, but when he got stubborn like this it was hard to tell. 

“Gonna trade you in for a pony,” Phobos threatened. 

Doc stayed where he was, pressed as close to Phobos’ hips as he could, head and ears down, as if he was willing gravity to pull him harder. 

“Tell me,” Phobos commanded, and finally Doc perked up again. He stood, staying in Phobos’ lap, and turned 180, his right side facing his master.

The pocket Phobos kept his pain meds in.

Again, Phobos sighed. He didn’t like to take them early in the day or at work, and here was Doc insisting he do both. They made it hard to focus and still upset his stomach even when he took food with them. 

“Later,” he said. It was a command, Doc understood it, but he didn’t have much conviction behind it.

It still worked, and Doc hopped off his lap, pleased with a job well done.

* * *

In his desperate to avoid his coworkers, Phobos was pretending to have a deep interest in organizing the periodicals on his lunch. It usually only got done at the beginning of the day, which meant putting new newspapers out and taking anything older than two weeks to be archived.

This was rearranging everything from right to left the way people passed the area, from international to local, oldest higher up, newest down lower.

If he actually cared, it would have been impressive, and he would have been devastated at the reality it wouldn’t last a day. Still, it was a fine way to kill time.

(“And your back!” Doc seemed to say with his huffs.)

He picked up a disemboweled copy of last week’s Edmonton Journal, a few odd pages of it he could only identify by the page header. It was somewhere in the middle, short snippet articles that weren’t a great interest, but still newsworthy.

 _Deimos Volk_ caught his eye, and he wished it hadn’t. 

It was just a sentence. Just a sentence. Deimos Volk found guilty of the murder of Kieran Williams, and sentenced to serve a minimum of 25 years in Edmonton Institution. 

No follow up, no echo, no mention of how his brother, Phobos Volk, had found his entire world destroyed. No one reported on the unease Phobos felt now, how this ripped him to shreds just like losing their parents did, how he’d never fully stitched himself back together from that, either.

It was written about as if it were just a paper cut, as if Phobos didn’t feel beheaded.

He was about to slap that printed rag down and abandon this make busy project when he paused. Looked again at that paragraph, at the other name.

Phobos squinted at the victim’s name. There was something more familiar to it than just having heard it in the trial; he’d had this feeling then, too. _Kieran_ bounced around his head, trying to place it. It sounded like the name of someone he went to school with, something he heard all the time as a kid, worn and faded beyond recognition in his mind.

His phone beeped in his back pocket, telling him his lunch was over in five minutes, and he set the paper down, urging Doc to follow.

Before it even had time to cool from his body heat, someone else picked up the pages, reading that same paragraph, fixating on the words, the names, just like Phobos had.

Unlike Phobos, upon reading this bit of news they grinned.

* * *

Miraculously, Phobos made it to the end of the day. He’d taken it easy, skipping out on the front desk completely, hiding away at the internal reference desk for the rest of the day. He wasn’t in as much pain, but he still didn’t trust himself to not push his joints too far. It was so easy when he couldn’t really feel it.

He had to take more emergency pills through the afternoon, and at one point, he stopped. Held it in his hand, oblong white in his palm. 

How was Deimos holding up?

He’d never really needed the emergency meds like Phobos did, didn’t have pain like he did, but now he couldn’t even have his daily regulators. He didn’t have the option to take something as needed, he was just locked up, suffering. 

Their insurance wouldn’t cover the prison pharmacy at all. Phobos knew that. He’d have to cover the cost himself. 

He sighed, dropped the pill back in the bottle, and closed it. Better to ration it.

While he was clocking out, all he was thinking about was how he had to cover all of their living expenses now. Everything fell on his shoulders; sure, he could probably make rent okay on his own, and the car payments, but Deimos’ meds, and his, and the lawyers fees?

His hours for the week didn’t look like they’d be enough anymore, but that was out of his hands. His boss couldn’t even reschedule him to a less emotionally taxing shift, there’s no way she could figure out how to get him overtime.

Phobos puffed his cheeks out, let out a long, slow breath, running a hand through his hair, fingers tangling in the ends. He kept running his hands through the strands, either pulling out knots or making more, feeling the hair at the nape of his neck beginning to curl up again.

He finished clocking out, logged off, and started to make his way out. He’d figure this out, he told himself. He had no choice _but_ to figure it out.


	4. static shock

Things were starting to feel normal. Not awful, at least. 

Phobos was finally comfortable in the living room again. He’d been spending most of his time holed up in his room, the rest of the house too quiet. The soundproofing foam on most of the walls certainly didn’t help. Still, he was pushing himself to hang out in the living room; he was tired of using his bed as a home office.

It wasn’t much better to use the couch as one.

He glanced across the living room; across the couch, to the kitchen table in the dining room. He looked at the proper dining chair, the table with a light hanging over head, and sunk himself a little deeper into the couch cushions. He was cozy; a blanket over his lap, a cardigan draped over his shoulders, his feet propped up on pillows.

Sure, there were also stacks of files around him, a notebook and his laptop within arms reach. He was making his way through his health insurance policy. The other files piled around him were similar cases to Deimos’; people jailed and then released. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Mr. Gwin to have this handled, he just needed to feel like he was doing more than sitting and waiting. 

And if reading file after file of legal battles and medical jargon made him feel like he was actually helping his brother, Phobos was going to do it. 

He had fallen into either a rhythm or a stupor. His eyes scanned lines on pages, Doc’s nails clicked down the hallway, from his room at the far, back towards him and taking a detour around through the kitchen again. 

Phobos must have dozed off, and the sudden ringing of the doorbell jerked him awake. 

Doc ran for the front door, and Phobos sat up, snatching the cordless phone from the coffee table. Rather than an intercom they had to go to the door or anywhere specific in the house to answer, they had it wired to a landline phone and had about 4 portables scattered around. The ringing only came from the actual doorbell speaker by the door, thank god. 

“Hello?” Phobos asked, picking up his cell phone as well. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

“Hey,” Mr. Gwin’s voice came over the staticy connection, “I’ve got something for you, and I didn’t wanna wait for--” he cut out, “--sorry, for our meeting next week.”

“Oh! Okay! Uh, just, come down, Doc’ll let you in.”

“The dog?” was all Phobos heard before he hung up. 

Sure enough, there was the distant creak of the outside door, soft thumping steps down the stairs, and then a knock at the front door.

Doc looked at Phobos, waiting for an order. “Answer!” Phobos called, pointing to the front foyer, and Doc ran over, disappearing around the corner, out of Phobos’ line of sight. All the doorknobs inside the house were the long handle type, with fabric tethers tied to them. All Doc had to do was hop up and grab the tether to turn the handle, and step back to pull open the door.

“Well hello!” Mr. Gwin said in that telltale ‘I’m speaking to a dog’ voice, garnering a small ‘arf’ in response before Doc ran back to Phobos’ side. 

“Take off your shoes, please,” Phobos called. “And I’m in the living room, on your right.”

After a moment Mr. Gwin appeared, walking down the hall. He was in a suit, grey, as usual, but without the solid sound of his shoes, padding around in Phobos’ home in sock feet. 

He also didn’t seem to have anything.

Phobos smiled, sitting up and letting the cardigan fall off his shoulders, moving stacks of papers just in case Mr. Gwin wanted a seat. 

“Sorry about that,” Phobos said before Mr. Gwin could say anything, “If I don’t let Doc answer the door for new people he freaks out.” Mr. Gwin shook his head, gave a small shrug. Just as he started to say it was fine, Phobos interrupted, “so, what’ve you got for me?”

He glanced down at Mr. Gwins hands as he took them out of his trouser pockets; empty.

“It’s not a physical thing,” Mr. Gwin said, sitting on the coffee table. He was almost directly in front of Phobos like this, and he leaned his elbows on his knees. “Dr. Leclair saw your brother today.”

“What?” Phobos asked, perking up. That certainly was something. “She-- she saw him? Already? In-- in..?”

Mr. Gwin nodded. “It was just a quick consult to get a prescription, but they actually approved it super fast, so she got in to see him this morning. She actually had a plan ready to since the trial, and got it pre-approved with your insurance, so Tracy just went over it with him today.”

“Oh my god,” Phobos breathed, his shoulders falling in relief for what felt like the first time in days. “So-- so he’s good, then? He’ll be able to get back on his meds, then?”

Mr. Gwin didn’t answer right away.

“No his medication, no,” he said slowly, “but it’s-- you know, I trust her, she’s pretty much an expert in your condition, so she knows what she’s doing and you two trust her as well--”

“What’s the plan, Gwin,” Phobos insisted. 

He visibly winced. Like ripping off a bandaid.

“The only thing that’s covered is electroconvulsive therapy.”

“Fucking electroshock?” Phobos hollered. “That’s what Dr. Leclair recommended? That’s what they’re fucking covering?” He pulled his feet up onto the couch, curling himself into a strangle knot. 

“I know it’s--”

“Fucking torture?” Phobos interrupted, incensed. “Inhumane? They won’t cover some fucking pills, but-- but they’ll pay to lock him up and electrocute him?” After a moment, Phobos spat out, “bullshit,” finally done. 

Gwin seemed to let out a breath he was holding. “Apparently your brother said that too,” he said quietly. 

His face tucked against his knees like a petulant child, Phobos smiled to himself. Of course.

Once Phobos seemed to be well and truly quieted down, Gwin decided to chance speaking again. “I get it,” he started, “it freaked me out when she told me that was the plan, but it’s not-- this isn’t the 50’s, he’s not going to be strapped down to a table kicking and screaming.” He stood, coming to sit on the edge of the couch cushion next to Phobos, keeping his voice low. “It’s more like a TENS unit, you know those?” Phobos nodded. “Right! Just regular electrical pulses to help mitigate his symptoms, he can do it while he sleeps if he wants. Tracy has used this for people before, she knows it’s effective, especially for someone with Deimos’ severity.”

It was a long while before Phobos spoke again. 

“Okay,” was all he said, which was enough to urge Gwin to keep explaining it.

“You just have to buy the unit once, and if your insurance doesn’t cover most of it outright, Tracy and I will raise hell until they reimburse you.” He paused for a moment. “Actually, even if they do cover most of it, I’ll still raise hell until they cover all of it.”

“Okay,” Phobos said again, lighter now. He stretched out again, sitting up, bumping his knee again’s Gwin’s and trying not to think about it. “How often do these need to be replaced?”

“Ten years?” Gwin seemed to guess. 

“...you think I’ll need to?”

Gwin laughed. “No,” he said shaking his head, still chuckling, still laughing. He turned to fully face Phobos, this crooked grin on his face, glint in his eyes. “If this case takes me longer than two years, I’ll do it for free.”

He had always been very sure the whole time, ever since Phobos hired him. He didn’t ever waver, or even seem to consider the possibility that this might not work, that he wouldn’t be able to change the ruling, that they just didn’t have to proof they needed. He had always been confident, but this was the first time Phobos saw him act  _ cocky _ .

He hoped it wasn’t obvious that his heart was pounding up into his throat. That it sounded semi-natural when he cleared it with a cough.

“Is that all, then?” Phobos asked, pretending to check his phone for the time.

“...Yup!” Gwin said, standing. “That was all I wanted to tell you, so I’ll-- I’ll see you on Tuesday, then.” He started to head out with a swiftness.

“Ah-- wait--” Phobos called just as Gwin made it to the foyer, and he turned back to look.

Looking at Phobos with his hand in the air.

“The door sticks,” Phobos said, breathless. “The, the one down here. It, uhm,” he dropped his hand, “make sure you push it shut all the way.”

He put his hand on the wall, the corner of the foyer, just before leaving Phobos’ view. He put his hand on the wall, looked back at Phobos, and smiled. “Sure,” he said, and that was it.

Phobos waited until he heard the upstairs door shut before he let out a pitiful groan, sliding off the couch and onto the floor, clapping both hands over his face.

“I’m so stupid!” he yelled, muffled, following it with another groan. “Oh my gooooood. He comes here in a suit and I’m just, just, ugh!” He continued to recount every tiny embarrassing moment of the encounter into his hands, Doc slowly coming over and nosing at him. 

Once he was done his fit, he pulled himself back up onto the couch. He reached down, scratching Doc behind the ear, his fingers lost in the curly blond fur. 

“Swear he winked,” he muttered. “Promise me two years and then he winked when he left. I swear, Doc.”

Doc’s back foot started to raise and do small scratching kicks. As cute as it was, Phobos had to stop; literally all the joints in his arm started to scream in that itchy pain of a flare. He rubbed his hands together, trying to soothe his fingers to little avail. 

He stood slowly, stretching cautiously. As comfy as it was to bundle up on the couch, it really wasn’t doing him any favours, his ligaments revolting. He’d turn up the heat, he decided, and run a bath. A bath with epsom salt, that would make him feel a little better. 

In the doorway of the bathroom, he turned and looked back into the foyer across the hall. The mat at the door and the rubber tray he kicked his shoes off into were, for the past few weeks, normally askew. He never cared to keep it orderly, and Deimos was always on his case about putting things back, which Phobos never did.

They were both straightened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im pretty sure its clear but if its not the doctors name is Tracy Leclair and listen i could add it into the earlier chapters when she gets brought up but ehhhhh  
> also im so damn excited to write the next chapter i have it all planned out!!


	5. oh god, oh fuck

Phobos had to keep telling himself that it was only Tuesday. Only Tuesday, and he was already at the end of his rope.

He’d left Doc at home for the day. For the past two days. Phobos said he needed a break, that he was working full time now, and Phobos was feeling better.

Bullshit.

He was annoying. He’d spent the better part of the weekend, the mornings, nights, every moment Phobos was home, alerting him. Nipping at him, standing on him, trying to get him to take his emergency regulators, which Phobos refused. It wasn’t so bad, he could hold on, he needed to save those in case any other expenses came up and he needed a stockpile. The daily ones should be working just fine, anyway. Not to mention Doc whined almost every time Phobos stood, held something, bent in anyway, hyper-sensitive to pain Phobos was trying to ignore.

So he had no plans on bringing his service dog out for the time being. At least not until he got  _ something _ sorted. Like seeing his brother, any time, without the prison cancelling his visits last minute. Or his insurance company acknowledging Deimos’ treatment even existed, let alone could be covered.

Or that maybe, for once, Jennifer would remember a single goddamn thing he told her.

“Sorry Volk, but we just don’t have the staff to let you go early today,” she said all too calmly, too level, like she was telling him they ran out of sugar for coffee.

“I know we’re scheduled really tight, but this is why I emailed you last week about this.” Phobos was doing his best to imitate her tone, the detached coolness. His throat was already tight, an ache ruminating in his jaw.

“The schedule was already set.”

“No, it wasn’t.” The worst part was that she kept eating her lunch as he spoke, as if this were a friendly conversation she could half listen to. He kept standing next to her, at one of the tables in the break room. She  _ had _ an office she could eat in, and then Phobos wouldn’t have to keep glancing at the door lest anyone walk by and hear him. “I asked you last Sunday if I could be off early today, and every Tuesday after, because you told me you make the schedules on Tuesday, so that should have been plenty of time to figure something out.”

“It just didn’t work out this week.”

He bit his tongue. Literally. It always tastes white to him, that long sharp pain of his front teeth digging in. “So,” he said slowly, trying to keep calm, not sound so damn pissy, “what am I supposed to do then?” He leaned a hand on the table, bending down close to her, eye on the door. “I’ve got a meeting with my lawyer, his office closes when I clock out.”

She shrugged. “Tell him to wait?”

“It’s in Bonnie Doon, Jennifer, and I leave at rush hour. I’ll get there two hours after our appointment was supposed to be.” He tried to breathe evenly, calmly, but it came out as a sigh. “Come on,” he pleaded, “this is  _ important _ .”

Jennifer huffed a sigh, rolling her eyes. “If you can reschedule it sometime this week, I can figure something out. But I can’t reschedule today with no notice.”

He physically restrained from imitating her as he straightened back up. “Fine. I’ll call him, and let you know when I’m off lunch what day I’ll need.”

“Good.” She snapped the lid on over her leftovers, and stood. “Drop the attitude before you do, it’ll probably help.”

If he wasn’t still paying off his student loans, he’d have quit then and there. 

Instead, he did the next best thing, and seethed all the way outside to the parking lot, to his car, holding in his reaction until the door had been slammed shut.

He screamed.

Low and guttural, more of a sustained “ugh” but it felt right. He bunched his hands into fists and pounded on the steering wheel, legs bouncing in an effort to kick. Dramatically, he flung his body back as much as he could into the seat, head bouncing off the headrest before pressing back into it. 

“Bitch,” he muttered, “fucking bitch,” he corrected, squirming, worming his phone out of his pocket. He dialed Gwin’s direct line; the receptionist would just patch him in anyway, it was faster this way. He managed to mutter out a final “bullshit” while it rang.

And rang.

And rang.

His voicemail picked up, and Phobos groaned. He was probably on lunch too, of course. He should have texted, or something, there was no way he’d get it rescheduled before the end of lunch.

It wouldn’t hurt to leave a message, he decided as it beeped.

“Uh, hey,” Phobos started, as if he was taken aback by the concept of leaving a message. “It’s me-- Phobos Volk, I’m just calling to-- my boss forgot I asked to leave early today, so I wanted to reschedule? You can just text me back, or--” A beep, and a click.

“Mister Volk!”

_ Well someone’s excited _ . 

“I-- I told you, just Phobos is fine.”

“Right, right, sorry. Phobos,” He sounded… out of breath? As if he’d rushed to pick up this call. “You’ll be late today, then?”

“No?” Phobos said, baffled, tilting his head in question. “No, I won’t be able to leave early to make it, so I--”

“It’s fine,” Gwin said, “I can-- it’s fine. Come in today.”

“...Are you sure?” Phobos asked. Again, he bit his tongue, gnawing the tip of it, to keep from rattling off the list of reasons Gwin should change his mind.

“Certain.”

Phobos could see it. That cocky little smile, almost smug, of Rob Gwin giving Phobos his word about something. Phobos didn’t believe in much these days, but he believed in that.

“I’ll see you then,” he said and hesitated pulling the phone from his ear.

“See you tonight,” was the response, and then a just as certain click as he hung up, leaving Phobos with dead air.

Finally, something was better. He wouldn’t have to fight with Jennifer again this week, either. 

He tossed his phone to the passenger seat and rubbed the tendons of his hand that had been holding it. Doc was right to fuss over him as much as he had been; Phobos couldn’t name a part of him that didn’t hurt. Well. Not  _ hurt _ , not exactly. It was unpleasant, his joints, all of them it felt like, on the verge of dislocating, twisting around backwards. It was this dull ache in his bones, an itch coming from inside of him, that wasn’t helped by the cool weather. Cool crisp, and so dry it felt like his bones were made of bundles of barbed wire, catching and rasping together.

He didn’t even feel hungry. He just felt hollow, empty, like his body didn’t even know what to do about this. 

He did, though. 

He buckled up, started his car, and headed off to pick up something quick, to scarf down and head back in at the last possible minute.

* * *

Phobos managed to make through the rest of his day largely one-handed. Whichever hand he didn’t really need at any particular moment would be pressed to some joint on his body; wrapped around his wrist, his hip, his knee, trying to soothe it. By the time he clocked out, he knew he had to rush the meeting with Gwin to get home as soon as possible; he’d held off this flare up as long as he could, and it was going to hit and incapacitate him for the night. He knew it.

Even the drive over, his fingers dug into the wheel, counting the minutes, the kilometers, willing himself to keep it together. Even the short walk from the car to the door, he tried to pull up the collar of his bomber jacket, keeping the twitching pain out of his jaw.

He came in to the sight of the receptionist standing at her desk, in her coat, very clearly waiting. They smiled, exchanged small nods, and as he headed back to Gwin’s office, he heard her leave and lock the door. 

Standing in the open doorway, it was clear he’d ended his day a while ago.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Phobos said, and Gwin looked up at him, almost startled. 

He smiled, cracked a grin. “I wanted to.”

Phobos stayed where he was.

Gwin gave a small, beckoning wave. “Come, sit.”

Phobos sat, stock still, physically unable to relax. “We could have rescheduled,” he said quietly.

A shake of his head, golden hair bouncing. He wasn’t looking at Phobos, concerned with getting files out, a pen. “This is important.”

In due time, Phobos dropped the protests, and they got to business. It was all… dense. Intimidating. Gwin explaining it all, his plan, made Phobos realize just how out of his scope this was. Sure, he could look up trials and cases just like this over the past hundred, two hundred years. He could find things scarily specific, things that made him really think time was just a sick circle, the same souls tumbling through the same events over and over again, but that didn’t mean he knew what to  _ do _ with that information. 

It made that hollow feeling happen in his gut again, but not from hunger this time. Like he was standing over a cliff face and he had that creeping impulse to jump. 

He didn’t know if this was a step forward or back.

“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked, surprising himself.

“Hm?” Gwin looked up at him, crisp blue.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Phobos repeated, a tremor sneaking in. “What-- what if it’s not  _ good _ enough to prove Deimos didn’t do it, what if we need to find out who actually did it?” He took in a breath, his mouth moving, trying to find the word, the shape to the worry. It felt like his chest was rumbling, his heart pounding so hard. “...What if he never gets out?”

Gwin’s shoulders slumped. Just a centimeter, just barely. “We’ll know it’s good enough when we try,” he said slowly, measured. Like this was another day of work for him, nothing special. 

He kept talking, kept saying things; platitudes, assurances, all things very logical and reasonable, and Phobos wasn’t hearing any of it. He dug his fingers into his knees, gritting his teeth. Half anger, and half…

“It’s starting,” he whispered. 

Gwin’s voice, a question, Phobos couldn’t hear him over the rush of blood in his ears. He couldn’t hold off this flare until home, it was hitting now. It was hitting in his lawyers office, in the middle of their meeting.

Phobos stood, too fast, wobbling.

“Phobos?!”

“I need your bathroom.”

He was ushered to it, both incredibly aware of every sensation and absolutely numb to it all. A pressure on his back, his legs moving, clumsy steps. This part was the worst. It made him want to throw up, but he never had.

He was pretty sure he got into the bathroom and shut the door to some degree. It didn’t matter. He fell to the floor, his knees, and pulled off his jacket and shoes; clumsy, hands barely listening to what he wanted to do, pain rippling through his body. It came in waves, pounding his pulse through his limbs, his cells shifting.

“Gwin,” Phobos said, trying to call for him, barely making a noise. He moved, and there was a sickening crack of bone; his hips, the worst of it, cracking and stretching. He yelled for the second time that day, same as the first; low, guttural. “Shit,” he slurred, drool starting to drip from the corners of his mouth, unable to close his lips.

“Rob!” he called again, a growl.

Like a dog.

There Rob was, in the doorway, standing over him. He didn’t say anything, a small crease of worry between his brows.

“Need my bag,” Phobos said, and he sounded as pathetic as he was sure he looked. 

Whatever Rob said, he let the door fall shut as he left.

It was a remodeled home bathroom, just like the rest of the office. Handlebars added to be accessible, an automatic soap dispenser on the wall, and the mirror--

The mirror was tilted, angled, intended for someone in a wheelchair to be able to still see themself in it.

Now, it was perfect for Phobos to peer up and see just how bad this flare was. 

He was in this weird halfway point between human and dog, his nose stretching into a snout, his mouth grotesquely hanging open, teeth turning sharp and canine. His body was stretching out, fur sprouting under his collar, in the growing gap between his shirt and pants. His hands were the farthest gone, maybe, shifting and stretching out the fastest, always a strange median of hands and paws. Thick pads on his palm and fingers, he could run home if need be, cold unable to touch him 

He leaned forward, reaching one of those halfway hands back, checking to see if his tail was coming in this time or not. Off-cycle shifts were always so strange, not all of him changed. 

Still hurt all the same.

Light from the hallway pooled in around Rob. He had Phobos’ bag in his hands, opened, all the pockets open, everything dishevelled. 

“You need your meds, right?” he said as he knelt next to Phobos, letting out a soft grunt. “Dunno how much they can do now, though.” Still, he opened the pill bottle, the regulator, suppressant, whatever you wanted to call it, and cracked open a water bottle. He held things steady for Phobos, helping him bring things to his mouth, his hands not so good at gripping right now, his head too heavy for his neck, gently tilted back as Phobos drank water. 

It might have been placebo, but Phobos felt an immediate effect. He didn’t hear that rushing in his ears anymore, he felt like he was  _ in _ his body again. 

“Can you take me home?” He still didn’t sound like himself, he could tell; there was this gruffness to it, an unnatural quality. 

“Of course.”

Standing up again, Rob grabbing his things, Phobos got a moment in the mirror again, confirming it was a weird, halfway, off-cycle shift. He wasn’t one of his usual heights; if he slouched he’d be about as tall as Rob, and his feet still felt human, he didn’t need to take his shoes off in anticipation like he had, but there was no way he was going to try and put them back on.

His face was the worst, just by virtue of the fact that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Literally. His jaw had stretched, long, canine, but his skin didn’t quite match it, and he had to suck in wet breaths. 

Rob put Phobos’ coat over his head, an arm around his waist, and pulled him along.

“We’ll take my car, it’s out back,” he explained, “you can lie in the back seat and out of view.” Phobos wasn’t about to argue. He’d worry about getting his car back later, when he could actually drive it.

The amount that Phobos had to continue to curl up while he was laying across the seat was a good indication he wasn’t done shifting. It was hard to track, but he didn’t care anymore; he was still wracked by pain, it would course through him at sudden intervals, make him shiver, shudder.

Maybe Rob asked him once or twice on the drive how he was feeling. Phobos didn’t remember; it was all a blur until they got to his house. After sunset, thank god, and there the sudden clarity of Doc in his home. Fragmented, not as clear, but just like every time he shifted-- it wasn’t as if he could read Doc’s thoughts. But he could sense him a lot more clearly, his body language louder now, Phobos’ nose sensitive to subtle changes. 

The house stunk like anxiety.

He needed Rob to get the key in the lock, paws clumsy. 

Instantly, Doc was at their feet, worried barks, growls, all in an I-told-you-so tone. Phobos mumbled apologies, the meager effects of his medicine hitting their peak. 

Of course Doc knew what was happening, and had evidently been running around getting things ready for Phobos. He’d gotten the proper, stronger meds, kept in a first aid kit of sorts, from the bathroom. He’d worked on getting an indulgent long body pillow out of the closet; it was about the length of two and a half regular ones, marketed to pregnant people, but it helped Phobos sleep when he shifted, keeping his limbs supported, had some psychological effect of making him feel secure in a den. 

In all honesty, he’d forgotten Rob was still there until he asked how he could help.

“Listen to Doc,” was all Phobos could manage to tell him. He was a smart man, experienced with the special needs of werewolves; that was most of his clientele, the reason Phobos hired him. Even if he’d never seen a shift before, he could figure out how to help.

Like getting food, Phobos realized as he climbed into bed. He’d stripped his clothes off at some point, not needing them with even a thin coat of fur. He wrapped himself around that body pillow, the long end of it behind his back, keeping him contained. 

If he hadn’t been so stupid, so stubborn, he could have defrosted some steak. He could have been having the good stuff now, but no, he decided to deny and ignore his symptoms, and now his gut was aching to replenish the energy used on this. What he had, what was easy, were meal replacement drinks and protein bars. Nutritionally and calorically dense stuff; he always kept some, even though he was the only one to ever eat them. When Deimos shifted, his food sensitivities got even worse, he became a strict carnivore, so they were useless to him until he turned back. 

The bed dipped down, and a hand slipped under his head, urging him to sit up. 

“C’mon,” Rob’s soft voice urged, “you need the energy.” A bottle, one of those meal replacements was being pressed to his lips, a small stream of liquid being poured into his mouth. 

_ I do _ , Phobos thought, finally soothed.

* * *

Phobos blinked awake some hours later, hungry yet again. 

He sat up, room dark, skin prickling up into goosebumps. He wasn’t certain, but judging by the way he could press his lips together, the lack of hair on his torso, he was pretty sure he was back to his usual look. 

His stomach growled. Empty. Demanding. 

He was careful getting out of bed, so as not to wake Doc; he was snoring next to where Phobos’s hand had been, probably had nosed his way under his palm. 

The floor was cold, and Phobos shuffled to the door, picking a sweater off the floor on the way. It was probably from earlier that day, but it didn’t matter. It was warm and soft on his body. 

He made his way to the bathroom, all the way down the hall, across from the kitchen, and succumbed to the natural urge of sticking his head under the tap and turning on the faucet, lapping at the stream of cold water. Would’ve been easier with a snout. 

The growling of his stomach was persisting, so he headed to the kitchen. He didn’t want the dry and crumbly protein bars, so he opened the fridge, squinting into the light of it, looking for leftovers. 

A bowl of leftover chicken salad, saran wrap stretched over the top. 

His mouth watered like he’d found ambrosia. 

Phobos grabbed the bowl, peeled back the plastic, and ate it with his fingers, standing in the triangle of light. No one would ever know. 

He licked his fingers clean, wiping them off on the bottom of his sweater, and traded the bowl for a bag of shredded cheese, following the same routine. It just tasted better eating with his hands, more… pure. Simple. Nothing was better than just shoving his face in a container and  _ eating _ , but he didn’t have the bone structure for that right now.

Somewhat satisfied, he put back the cheese, and wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, kicking the fridge door shut. 

Right, he’d need to lock the door. Rob-- Gwin, Mr. Gwin, he’d been here, he didn’t have a key, he couldn’t have locked up when he left, and Phobos had been obviously unable to. 

A soft snore came from the living room. 

Phobos froze. He stopped breathing. 

Another-- not a snore, just breathing. Deep, heavy breathing, of someone sleeping. 

Phobos turned to face the living room, pivoting on his heels. 

On the couch, his back to the room, spare blanket from the linen closet covering him to the waist, was Rob Gwin. There he was, sleeping on Phobos’ couch, his bare shoulder touching the couch cushion Phobos sat on, under a blanket washed with Phobos’ laundry detergent, that had been swapped around many times before, had been on Phobos’ bed. His suit, the jacket, shirt, slacks, were folded neatly and placed on the coffee table, and Rob was in an undershirt.

In an undershirt, sleeping on Phobos’ couch.

As quietly as werewolf-ly possible, Phobos bolted to his room, gently shutting the door so he could freak the fuck out in peace. 

“Oh my god!” he hissed through his teeth. “Oh, god. Oh, fuck.”

He paced in circles, thankful this was a basement suite, that he wasn’t giving someone else the most stressful 2 am of their life. He pressed his palms to his cheeks, hoping to absorb their heat, their flush, whisper-yelling to himself. It wasn’t until Doc stirred that he finally stopped, finally snapped out of it. 

He sat at the foot of his bed, reaching across to Doc and scratching him behind the ears, under the chin. 

It was embarrassing. Painfully embarrassing. Humiliating. He’d rather have thrown up on Rob’s shoes, at least he wouldn’t feel obligated to spend the night over that. 

Pulling off the sweater and crawling under the sheets, he did reconsider slightly; it was kind of sweet. He didn’t need to do all this for Phobos, after all. He didn’t even need to wait for him, to stay longer. Everything Rob had said to him kept ringing true.

Rob wanted to do this.

Phobos was in good hands. 

He curled up in bed, drifting off to sleep again, thinking of the conviction Rob had about this case. If anyone could help Deimos, it was him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i asked on my tumblr (glowyphobos) what supernatural aspect people thought i'd be putting in this and one friend said they were rly tickled by the idea of doc being a werewolf and HOO BOY the noise i made when i read that. so close yet so far away.


	6. grave dirt

All in all, it was a pretty normal morning for Phobos. As normal as things could be, at least. He’d gotten up nice and early, made breakfast for him and Doc, packed his lunch, and was doing his hair before getting dressed.

When he heard footsteps padding across the kitchen, he  _ assumed _ it was Deimos, coming to tease him for going through all the effort of straightening his hair, like he did every morning. He was getting ready to spit back a line about how not all of us just need to wear scrubs to work, some of us like to put together an  _ outfit, brother dear-- _

But it wasn’t Deimos, Phobos remembered. 

Half asleep and dishevelled, gripping the bathroom door frame, he remembered it was Rob.

Phobos stopped, taking the straightner away from his hair. 

Rob seemed to be unaware he was awake.

“Hey--”

“Y’straighten yer hair?” Rob asked, words slurred from sleep.

“Yes?” Phobos replied as if it was obvious. 

Apart from a small nod, all Rob did was stare.

“...We have a coffee maker,” Phobos said, and apparently that was the magic spell. Phobos didn’t even need to say where it was, Rob honed in on it and the coffee in the cupboard above.

Phobos turned back to the mirror, insisting to himself the flush in his cheeks was from the heat of the iron.

In just a minute (it was why they’d bought the thing) Rob was in his previous spot, coffee in hand, a difference like day and night. 

Nevermind that he was still in his skivvies. Phobos had thought that the scandalous slip of shoulder he saw last night was just that, a slip, but apparently Rob had not gotten the memo, and was perfectly content to traipse around Phobos’ home like it was nothing.

Phobos stared into the mirror.

“So, I’m taking you to work, right?” Rob asked.

“Are you?” Phobos deflected.

“Well, your car’s at my firm. Unless you wanna chance the bus, that is.”

Fuck. He forgot about that. 

“We can just go to the office and I’ll drive myself to work.”

“That’ll make you late.”

Phobos faltered. It would. It would, but the other option was just-- just unbearable. Improper. Not to be done. What would people think, seeing his lawyer dropping him off?

...What did he think?

“...Won’t you be late if you take me, though?” Phobos asked. In fact, he might be late now; he’d assumed Rob kept a fairly standard 9 to 5, and if that was the case, he’d need to leave now to just make it. Phobos had made the drive from Belmead to Bonnie Doon plenty of times now, and it was just enough of a pain in the ass every time to make him grumble about it. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Rob said, eyes sparkling as he took a sip to punctuate. 

“No, really,” Phobos said, clicking off the straightener, turning to face Rob. Just as he opened his mouth to insist Rob just go to work and let Phobos figure his own transportation out, he was interrupted.

“No,  _ really _ ,” Rob implored. “I said don’t worry about it, so don’t.”

Again Phobos opened his mouth to protest, but the words just didn’t go from his brain to his mouth. Almost as soon as Rob said that, Phobos felt the coil of worry untwist in his gut. Phobos let out a soft sigh, shoulders falling just a hair. He wasn’t worried about it anymore. 

“FIne,” Phobos said, unplugging from the wall and winding the cord. “I won’t worry about it. I’ll get my car over lunch, or something.”

“Oh, a lunchtime meeting?” Rob asked, smiling over his coffee. “I don’t usually schedule those, Mr. Volk, but I can make an exception.” 

Phobos smirked, giving Rob a light shove to the shoulder as he pushed past, certain the roots at his nape were starting to curl already. “Yeah, well,” was the witty retort he gave. “Get dressed before I start worrying again.”

* * *

Finally, after what seemed like too long, Phobos had a request to visit Deimos go through. He’d had his suspicions on why it took so long, but he was trying to tamp them down, lest he thought about them too hard and he turned out to be right. 

He knew he was, however, when they didn’t even ask about Doc. No stop, no weird questions, nothing. Staring through the plexiglass with a mass of corgi-esque mutt made him wonder how much of a pain in the ass it would be to arrange the kind of visits where you could touch the other person. 

At least for Doc’s sake. 

Deimos came in the other side of the room in  _ a  _ huff, waving a hand over his shoulder and a very clear glower etched into his face. He grabbed the received before even fully sitting down, and Phobos scrambled to match.

“It’s a fucking shock collar,” Deimos hissed down the line, clearly contiencious of being heard.

“A fu--” Phobos began to repeat, and then minded his language. “A shock collar!” he hissed back, bringing a hand up to cradle the mouth of the receiver. “Like, for real? On your neck?”

Deimos nodded, leaning back, and dragged a finger across his throat; low, circular, just above his collarbones. “They’re jumpy about people from outside seeing,” he said, almost conspiratorially, “so they made me take it off first.”

Phobos was quiet a moment, and then asked, “does it work?”

“What?” Deimos asked, eyebrows arching severely.

“The-- does it work? Does it manage flare ups?”

Deimos seemed to think. He pursed his lips, unhappy with his answer. “Yeah,” he conceded, “yeah, it does actually work.”

“Are you worried, then?” Phobos asked, which got a blank stare from Deimos. “Like,” Phobos began to explain, “since it works, and they made you take it off so you could see me, are you worried that--”

“No,” Deimos said quickly. “No, I don’t wear it while I sleep, either. Dr. Leclair, she told me it’s fine to have it off for up for twelve hours, while it’s on it should minimize my flares enough that I can just-- just power through it, basically.”

Phobos sighed, smiled. “Good. That’s way less to worry about.” As way of explanation, he added, “which I need, our lawyer saw me flare, so is there anything else you need in here? Is the food okay?”

“No, it’s--” Deimos was almost caught, and then leaned forward, twirling a finger in a circle, rewind. “No, no, back up there peabody, our lawyer?” 

For anyone else watching, Deimos had kept the same glower as when he walked in. But Phobos could tell. That twitch of his cheek, his tooth peeking out for just a hair, his hand (in some part) moving in a circle, something that somehow always egged Phobos along--

“Ugh,” Phobos grunted, rolling his eyes.

“He saw you?” Deimos asked.

“I was under a lot of stress,” Phobos explained. 

Deimos nodded, silently waiting.

“ _ Ugh _ ,” Phobos repeated, which only made Deimos grin wickedly. “Like, my boss was being  _ her usual _ , right? All snippety and not giving me time off to meet Rob, which I’m certain is because I had to keep cancelling it ‘cause I was trying to see you, and they were just rejecting my visitation apps one after another, which, like,” He dropped his voice here, the only thing stopping him from working himself into a frenzy, “I’m sure they did that ‘cause I was so pushy about your meds and our doctor seeing you, y’know?”

Deimos had kicked back again, leg folded and hand gripping his ankle. He nodded, this serious consideration on his face. 

“So, I just-- I mismanaged, I thought I could handle more than I could, and I couldn’t, and he just-- what was he supposed to do, kick me out of his office mid flare up?”

“No, yeah, I get it,” Deimos said, stretching back, taking in a deep breath, almost a yawn. “So, when’d you start calling him by his first name?”

_ Exactly that night _ Phobos thought, but instead he sputtered until he spat out, “that’s what you got from that? That’s all you heard?”

Deimos could not physically remove the grin from his face even if his mouth were gone. “No, I heard the, uh--” He coughed, “--your theory. I bet you’re right.” He left his pause at the end, that made Phobos wait for the rest of the sentence, for the  _ comma but _ .”

“....but this is more fun?” Phobos asked, hating every second.

“This is more fun,” Deimos confirmed, loving every iota. “What’s he call you?”

“I am not doing this,” Phobos said, trying to mean it.

“You flared at his office, right? And he took you home?”

“...and he spent the night.”

Every feature on Deimos’ face that could widen, he did. This was, without a doubt, the most fun and the best gossip he’d had in months. 

“On the couch.” Phobos reverted to hissing again, just to keep from yelling. “it’s not  _ like that _ , D.”

All Deimos really had to do was tilt his head and raise his eyebrows, but he still asked “Are you sure?”

A flickering reflection in the glass made Phobos glance around himself. He’d forgotten, somehow, that he wasn’t just being tormented by his brother. He was in a room full of people, some of them certainly listening. 

He didn’t want to cause a scene.

“ _ I’m certain _ ,” he said softly, switching to Ukrainian. They didn’t normally speak it with one another, saving it for their relatives and  _ Titka _ , but this felt like the time. “ _ It’s a completely professional relationship _ ,” Phobos insisted, “ _ and what else was he going to do? Make me ride it out in his office bathroom? It’s not like I could drive myself home like that or-- or call a taxi. And then it was late, and-- _ ” Phobos huffed a sigh, trying to remind himself to not give Deimos any more material. “ _ He’s our lawyer _ ,” he stated, a veneer of calm coming over him, “ _ and he’s like, at least fifteen years older than me, so there’s no way-- _ ”

“ _ That hasn’t stopped you before _ ,” Deimos interrupted, keeping the language change. 

Just before Phobos could hang up in a flustered flare, Doc sat up, his head above the counter, letting Deimos see him.

Thank god, a distraction. 

“You wanna say hi to--”

“Yes,” Deimos said, demeanor completely shifting. Phobos brought the receiver down to Doc, holding him up while he sat on his lap, that just-happy-to-be-here expression he always did. 

Phobos could hear Deimos cooing, doing baby talk, softly from the receiver. He scratched at Doc’s chest, smiling softly. It was almost normal, he could just about pretend.

Until he looked up at Deimos.

It was easiest now to see how different he was, with that grin on his face. His face was thin, and it wasn’t helped by that buzzcut, same as the last time Phobos saw him. He still hadn’t gotten used to it; he’d been seeing his brother with a long, curly, mass of hair since they were kids, and now it was just gone for the sake of convenience and fear. He also had stubble growing in, which Phobos was sure he hadn’t seen on Deimos in their adult life. 

He was already different, and that was just what Phobos could see.

Deimos did a quick point up, and Phobos put the receiver to his ear. 

“You look terrible,” Phobos said. 

“Thanks,” Deimos’ reply dripped with sarcasm. He knew.

“Have you been eating in there? Is there enough food for you?”

Deimos’ resigned sigh was staticy over the line. “I’ve been trying,” he said. “A lot of meals I’m just sick after, or I can’t keep anything down.” He folded his arms on the counter, leaning forward. “I started smoking again, just so I wouldn’t feel so damn hungry all the time.” 

Phobos could have guessed that. He was never really convinced Deimos actually quit, honestly. 

“I’ll get on it,” Phobos said, “I’ll make sure they actually--”

“Don’t,” Deimos interrupted.

Phobos blinked at him 

“What if they do the same shit again?” he asked, voice low. 

“They approved today.”

“And how many times did you apply?” Deimos asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll figure it out,” he said, and that was that. Even now, he called the shots. 

That seemed to be it, and Phobos was going to drag himself away, when Deimos gave a quiet but firm, “hey,

“You should visit mom and dad.”

* * *

He’d been meaning to, really, before this all happened. Before Deimos was arrested, Phobos had been thinking it had been a while since he had visited, and that they should go the next nice weekend. 

It wasn’t a nice weekend.

It was cold and unusually wet, a slushy snow storm surely on the horizon. But it was dry now, and cold enough that apparently no one else was eager to drive out of the city, making the drive virtually painless. 

Phobos only came this way to visit his parents, even though he knew the neighborhood he’d grown up in was just a little farther. It was more of a rural suburb, a secluded knot of a subdivision with just a single cul de sac back then, than a neighborhood. Everyone who lived there now, and had lived there for the past century were the same; Ukrainian werewolves. Most of them were family, technically, related somewhere in the past, but Phobos never had any idea what the exact relations were, and he wasn’t about to start worrying about it now. 

He gave a glance to where the suburb laid in the distance as he turned off the main road. They’d always called it the commune, like they were all hippies in tents connecting to the sun. He’d never even called it anything until they left, when he and Deimos turned 10 and their parents decided to move into the city and send them to public school. 

As he got out of the car, he flipped up the collar of his jacket-- cheap fake leather that had been warm enough in his driveway. He’d fantasized plenty over his life that he’d have been  _ better _ somehow, whatever that meant, if he’d always lived out here. But with Doc whimpering at his heel and his hips grinding together like rusted gears as soon as the cold touched him, he scrapped that seventeen year old daydream. 

He could’ve brought the car in farther, he realized. There was a parking lot, but he was pretty sure it was just for when there were burials; the gravel paths bisecting the grounds were wide enough for a car, he could have driven right up to the section. He hugged himself as he walked, bright bouquet of flowers bouncing against his shoulder.

It never got easier seeing the headstone. It still seemed too new, too fresh, not real. 

It was long, marking a double plot. Both of their names etched in, Mars Charles Volk and Ares Lynn Volk, a short epitaph for the both of them, calling them beloved friends and parents, that they would be missed and loved.

Honestly, every time he looked at it, he remembered fighting with the gravestone engraver forever to have their names written out properly, while they insisted they could only do legal names first, the names everyone actually called them stuffed in quotes in the middle. 

He patted a hand on top of the stone, using it to steady himself as he set the bouquet down on the ground, following it to the ground shortly. He was sitting on dad, Doc on mom.

They wouldn’t mind. They were always a pretty cuddly family, anyway. When he and Deimos came together they always tried to sit right between them, and he scooted over as much as his joints would allow.

“Sorry it’s been a while,” he said, “things have been… rough.” 

Phobos didn’t believe in an afterlife or ghosts or anything of the sort. Dead things were dead, and that was it, just a great vast nothing you’d never even know about. He had no misconstruction that they might be listening, that he was keeping some entity in the know, an energy updated. They were gone, and had been for 4 years. 

This was for him. 

He didn’t believe they were there, he repeated to himself. They were gone.

“Now that Deim isn’t home anymore, I know how much I relied on him.” He reached for Doc, fingers scratching under his vest. “I thought we were pretty distant since you guys… since the accident, but I guess he was taking care of me all this time and I never really thought about it.”

The sun broke through the clouds, cutting through the cold like a sewing needle through fabric.

“I know he’s innocent,” Phobos said, “I know everyone says that, but I know he is. It doesn’t make sense, he wouldn’t--” he let out a sigh, looked up at the still grey sky. “I hate that I don’t know what he’s doing, but it’s not like I paid that much attention before, anyway.” He scoffed. “Can’t believe I thought I could run our place on my own. Maybe it’s better your house is still tied up with the bank, I’d work myself to the bone if I tried to keep that up.”

Eventually the cloud cover came back, and he pulled Doc against his chest to leech off his warmth. 

“I didn’t even set out the candles,” he mumbled to himself, bumping a hand over where he’d stashed them in Doc’s vest. They were just tea lights, small enough for him to carry. “D reminded me to get the purple ones, dad’s favourite, and I didn’t even--”

Something caught in his throat, his eye.

Once he got that cleared up, he stood, slow and wincing. 

He shoved his hands in his pockets, squeezing them tense and tight and then relaxing, trying to get some warmth back. He’d been sat out there for about an hour, and he’d probably need to spend the rest of the day recovering. He took slow, plodding steps, a slight limp, Doc not caring how long he took. 

Normally this cemetery was completely empty, except for when there was a funeral. The only people buried there were the people that lived nearby; a lot of the gravestones were for Volks, the family being some of the first immigrants to Canada in the 19th century. 

Despite the distance from the city, it seemed even this graveyard wasn’t immune from goths loitering around. 

It was a pair of people that hadn’t been there when Phobos arrived, huddled under a tree at the side of the path to the parking lot. He groaned to himself, knowing he’d have to pass by them at his infuriatingly slow pace. Hopefully they’d mind their business, he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with living people.

It might have worked, it might have been uneventful, if Phobos could just keep his gaze straight ahead, but he kept glancing over. He couldn’t help it; the pair was the only thing not dreary grey outside. 

They were passing a cigarette back and forth, one of them taking it more. Short, they seemed, bleached blond hair with a thin line of dark roots, sitting in a low fork in the tree, almost at the level of their distressingly tall companion. He seemed opposite of them somehow, long dark hair that didn’t blow in his face like Phobos’ did. All of him was dark, his hair, his skin, his eyes, his open leather jacket, clothes underneath. As Phobos came closer, he could see they were both wearing those leather chokers, with the big silver ring on front; matching it looked like.

He’d just about made it when the taller one called out to him. 

“‘Ey,” a deep voice, shaping around the vowels like it was his second language, “you were at the new Volk grave, you one’a their boys?”

Phobos slowed, almost to a stop. “Yeah,” he said, hesitating, “did you know them?” 

The pair looked at one another, and broke out in sudden brash laughs. High, braying, like the mocking call of hyenas, and it made Phobos freeze as if they really were wild animals and he was hoping he wasn’t seen. He just wanted to go, he could feel his knee creak, the reverberation shaking up his femur. 

The tall one stopped suddenly, as if he flipped a switch, and the blond one stopped just as quick, restraining themself into silence.

“You could say that,” he said, Phobos trying to place the lilt of his voice. 

That seemed to be it, and Phobos looked back ahead, muttered ‘have a good one’ and started on his way again. He took two steps, faster than his prior pace, when he was stopped, black combat boots, black laces, black jeans, suddenly in front of him.

“Excuse me--” Phobos said, looking up, forehead creasing.

“Tell Deimos hi for me.”

Phobos glared up at him, heart pounding in his ears. Now that he was close, he could see his face clearly; he had tattoos, black ink hard to distinguish against his skin, the garish bone tooth grin of a skull stabbed into his cheeks, that upside down heart curl of bone on the tip of his nose, all of it a shadow, a suggestion. He wasn’t familiar at all, how could anyone forget someone like this? But Phobos couldn’t place him. He must know him, to say what he said, he must be  _ someone _ .

“Who are you?” Phobos asked.

His eyes went wide, the grin spreading across his face not coming close to reaching it. There was a terse whispered “dumbass” from the blond one, still perched on the tree, which drew Phobos’ attention just enough to get him to look over

A hand grabbed his arm, up by the shoulder, snapping his gaze back forward.

The person that was there, wasn’t. He warped into something else. A skull looming over Phobos, pits of eye sockets not empty, but dark, hiding something. A deer skull, but with a maw of the sharp teeth or a carnivore, antlers stretching up into the sky, a bloody velvet coating strung between the prongs, falling onto that skull, mixing with rotting flesh that seemed to be growing, appearing, just as fast as it decayed and fell. 

Phobos smacked the hand off of him and thankfully, there was just a grinning man before him again. He pushed past, eyes scrunched nearly shut, staring at the gravel past, his joints screaming as he ran. Just seeing that made something in his body react, spark a sudden flare after witnessing that thing for just a second. 

“I'm Nidstang!” He hollered after Phobos, voice this unearthly boom. “Varg Nidstang!”

“We’ll be seeing you, Phobos!” the other one called. The blond one, voice raspy, the second thing they’d said shouldn’t have reached Phobos as he got to the lot, his car in sight, but it did. He heard it, a voice he did not know calling his name as clear as if they were behind him.

He jumped into his car the fastest he ever had, barely making sure Doc was in before he peeled out of the lot. Once he felt like he was far enough down the road, he pulled over, body jerking at how hard he hit the brake, seatbelt forgone in the interest of getting the hell away. 

As quickly as that flare sparked, it was subdued, no risk of shifting off cycle yet again. He rubbed his jaw, the bone aching, letting out shaky, open mouthed breaths. 

The hell was that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're finally to that villain reveal. yes i know i only put the name of one of them in here but fuck it im naming both of them in the character tags  
> as always, feel free to let me know what you think! drop a comment here, or send me an ask or message on my tumblr, [glowyphobos](https://glowyphobos.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> we back in the wheelhouse lads.  
> ive been hanging onto this since fucking april. thats like 9 months.  
> if you read my last human au, then, yeah, Something Like That is gonna happen. no spoilers tho. 
> 
> i'm eager to hear your feedback! leave a comment here, or message me on my tumblr, [glowyphobos](https://glowyphobos.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
